Stratics Info

Over the past weeks we have had the immense pleasure of reading through your most memorable moments. Every entry was very entertaining, heartfelt and reminds all of us how amazing Ultima Online truly is. We have reached end our Most Memorable UO Moment contest, but are happy to share with you the final winners. We received 12 entries from the Sonoma shard and had another tie! Here are the 7 winning UO memories from Sonoma: A Fish Tale My most memorable UO moment happened a couple years ago at the Capt’n EM Rumbelly’s Deep Sea Fishing Adventure on Sonoma. A call went out stating that fishing crews were wanted. All brave sailors, fishers and healers were needed as a rumor was spreading the towns that someone had spotted a huge fish in the waters off the coast and Capt’n EM Rumbelly wanted to see the proof since he believed it is was just a long fish tale.

The tale also spoke of grave peril, that ghost ships long sunk had given up their dead and they were wandering the seas. Although I was not a fisher, and far from being a sailor, I figured the least I could do is offer my healing assistance and perhaps I could get in a shot or two to help defend others. We headed off from New Haven docks and before we got to far the captain of the boat I was riding on managed to get us a tad lost. We had to circle around and try to find the other ships. It was ok though since the brave sailors remembered to bring a large stash of rum on board to share. We were a bit intoxicated by the time we caught up with the other ships but we sure had fun telling wayfaring jokes and reminiscing about former barmaids. We did our best to defend the fisher of our boat but the deep sea monsters attacked us fearlessly and a few of the sailors gave up their ghost. The other ships did come to our aid and our fisher did manage to catch a pretty darn good sized flapper. However, even though we came in last place for the weight of our fin friend we had a blast trying and I forged a bond with the other players. Because of that fun and memorable event I developed an interest in seafaring. I took up the skill of fishing and I was certainly ready for the deep sea adventures we have now with pirates. Maybe one day Capt’n EM Rumbelly will return to take us on another deep sea adventure. If he does I will be sure to bring an extra keg or two of fresh distilled brews to help us brave the waves and sea monsters.

It was supposed to be like every other night then I logged into UO. Log in, find Ghengis and Libby and see what mischief we could accomplish for a few hours of playtime. That’s how the night was supposed to go. Instead, I logged in & found Ghengis standing around Moonglow Bank and learned Libby was not online yet. Ghengis and I talked for a short while and something felt very “off” to me about him. What a surprise for me to learn that Ghengis this night was actually a real life older brother that also played that account and I would learn to know him better as “Lestat”. Over the next few hours of this night, Lestat showed me a side of UO I had never experienced. We killed Blood elements with our pet dragons in Ilshenar. We provo’ed Shadow Wyrms with our bards in the bottom of Destard. We visited all the towns in Trammel. He explained to me what a “mule” character was. To say the least I was sad when he said he had to log out because he worked the next morning, but promised he would log in the following evening to play beside me. I knew then a friendship was born. Over the course of the next few months Lestat and I were inseparable. We did everything together from working our Blacksmith skills at the same forge, working our provocation skills up at Shadow Wyrms. I’ll always adore those long nights we spent playing the game and voice chatting at the same time. To end this story of one night logging into to Ultima Online and discovering a friend, Lestat and I live together in real life now, engaged, and we both still log into UO almost every evening from different rooms of our house and yell back and forth from room to room such things as: “Hun, can you heal me??!!” or “Baby can you kill that dragon before it eats me?!?” Not only did I meet a friend from that one night, but I met my Best Friend for life.

Server Down

When the server down message pops up, everyone, including myself equip our best weapons and armor and head on over to the Brit Graveyard. There you see all sorts of characters. Everyone has their best of the best equipment on and ready for battles that would have no consequences. There is no fear of losing your Supremely Accurate Weapon of Vanquishing. There is no fear of losing your Indestructible Armor of Invulnerability. I was one of those that bared it all for the great fights night after night at the Brit Graveyard. My weapons of choice have always been a Halberd and a Katana. So with that being said, I equipped my Supremely Accurate Halberd and Katana of Vanquishing. I loaded myself with Reagents, Potions, and my Teleporting/Invisibility items for the nightly battle. Once there, you can see the masses gathering. Blues would congregate on one side. The reds would gather on another side. Without warning, some blues will flag grey and it would be an all-out war between blues on greys, blues on reds, blues on blues, reds on reds, and greys on greys. As a PK, I did not care what color you showed. I killed whoever was close to me. I precast my Explosion, and find my target. Once the Explosion is upon him/her, I would run in with a swift whack of my Supremely Accurate Halberd of Vanquishing, and then back up a few steps and cast an Energy Bolt at my victim. If they are lucky and survive the initial assault, and would then either blast them with an Explosion/Energy Bolt combo, or just simply equip my Katana and slice them until they are dead and seeing grey. I have to admit, there are times where I would have to flee with the numbers not in my favor. That is when my Teleporting/Invisibility items come in handy. Drink a Greater Heal Potion and teleport away and turn the corner and *poof*, hidden. I would then gather my thoughts and run back into the masses and pick them off one by one. Out of all the battles, duels, and fights I have been in, the server down wars was the best in my mind. It has always stuck in my memories. This was the time where the reds can be red; this was the time where blues can also be reds. This was the most carefree fights I have ever been a part of. This was a very memorable moment in my life on Ultima Online.

‘DragonSnack in the Dungeon of Blood’ (queue scary music) Once upon a time, I decided to change professions. More than that, I changed me. New name. New house. New skills. As I was redeveloping myself I stumbled upon my new profession quite by accident. I decided to become a raconteur. One of the things that I needed to assist me in my new job was a horse. After a few test drives I settled on a creature known as DragonSnack. He is known as DragonSnack since the dragons did not think he alone equaled a full meal. In those days I traveled Sonoma alone. I enjoyed exploring new places and telling people about what I saw. DragonSnack was my company. His refusal to comply with the standard rules of RNG fascinates me. I had never stepped in Blood Dungeon. So, I grabbed my Sword of Dullness and my Shield of Metal Attraction, and DragonSnack and I headed to Blood Dungeon. I decided this dungeon would be easy. After all, it was only one level. At first I had no problems in the dungeon alone. It was just Imps and Hellcats. Moving deeper I encountered more powerful denizens, but we squelched those. I was doing pretty good attacking things and backing off to heal when necessary. I was feeling pretty good and advanced further into the dungeon and spotted a Balron (Paragon). He spotted me too! He was SOOOO happy to see me! He ran right over and hugged me to death. I had tried to run but he was fast. As my vision turned gray, I saw DragonSnack head toward the Balron. “Great. Now I have to find a res for him too!â€ I thought as I ran from the dungeon. I had to run about 1189 miles to the nearest Moongate for a res. Once getting back to the dungeon, it took me a few attempts (and one more death robe) before I reached me body and could recover my precious junk. Now, all I needed to do was get DrgaonSnack’s ghost. Now the kicker to this was that ol’ Balron (Paragon). It saw me coming and chased me back out of the dungeon. I tried several times but that balron was persistent. I had to figure out a way to outsmart that Balron. I decided to take a nap. If you take a nap and your pet isn’t with you when you fall asleep it will be there when you awake. So, I took a quick nap, but there was no DragonSnack when I woke up. I tried a few more times, still no DragonSnack. I talked to some friends and no one had any ideas. I was certain that DragonSnack was gone to some RNG glitch. My sons joined me and mourned my loss with me. We decided to try one more trip to Blood to look for DragonSnack. We slowly fought our way into the dungeon. As we reached the dungeon, there stood DragonSnack. Alive. We killed the Blood Elemental standing beside DragonSnack. I mounted him and we raced out of the dungeon. Just as I was almost out of the dungeon I was finished off by an imp. The imp killed DragonSnack too. This time, I was able to recover my body and DragonSnackâ€™s ghost. DragonSnack has escaped a balron (Paragon), walked past several Blood Elementals and camped in the dungeon, unscathed (until I returned). How does that happen?

The King’s Visit. I scurried from my room at the Empathy Abby in Yew over to the bank. How silly of me to log off last night with some gold in my backpack, I’m shocked that the gold is even still with me and not lining the purse of some thief. But its ok now, I’ve got it safely stashed away in the bank. My house funds are growing nicely and soon I will have enough money to get that small stone and plaster house! But now is not the time for playing around in the bank, I have to get my knife and get down into the orc valley below the Yew Graveyard and start killing the orcs and get more gold and stuff to sell before anyone else gets there and takes over the spawn! I can remember with a pang of fear when the pack of reds attacked last night seemingly out of nowhere with their Uzi Bows, all with the same name… SpAwN. *supresses a shiver of fear and excitement* Ok, need a plan of attack here. First off ill hit the yew sheep pen and get some wool then over to the YMCA (The Yew Merry Center for All, a landmark on the Sonoma shard of a Large Tower directly across from the Yew Graveyard) and make some Band-Aids and then it’s off to the yew graveyard to get some bone armor. Then it’s straight down to the Orc Valley to make some gold! I leave the Abby in my short pants and shirt, knife in hand. I stop for a moment to put my grey robe on as I supress a giggle. “They will see this death robe and think I’m freshly resurrected and leave me alone”. I’m so much smarter than those reds I swear! I expertly sheer the wool of some sheep and roll into the YMCA, as the door swings shut behind me I see some names I recognise and some I don’t, I take a second look at the names I don’t know, for while the YMCA is a safe haven for those in the wilds not everyone plays by the rules of the house and more than one person has dropped dead from a well-placed flame strike when unbanned reds rushed the famous player run Inn. I deftly spin my wool into cloth and then into Band-Aids and I’m ready to leave when a flurry of activity descends upon the YMCA. Men on horseback have arrived at the Inn and from the fine cut of their clothes and the well-used weapons they carry these are men of means and knowledge. And then a name stands out amongst their group…. Lord British! “Oh my god” I whisper. I prostrate myself down in front of the Creator of all we know as he ambles into the Inn and starts to chat freely with all of us that are in here. He inquires as to how my night is going. I say something cheesy like “I’ve rid the world of those pesky sheep across the way” to which he laughs and moves on to the roof of the inn with his entourage. We, being dutiful followers of the Crown follow our liege lord up to the roof to hear what he has to say. I put the call out to everyone I know that the King is at the YMCA. And from what I can tell everyone else has done the same, for people are arriving in droves and pouring in from all directions. The atmosphere is festive as there are so many people here easily more people then play on this entire shard! Soon my joy turns to fear as riots of new characters are running down from the Abby, obviously newly made people coming from other shards to see the King on one of rare public appearances. And then the beast rears its ugly head…. The Lag Monster has arrived! And who can blame the Lag Beast for coming, everyone else in the game is here, why not the Lag Beast! In amongst the cut purses and rouges that are here we listen to our Lord British talk about how happy he is to see all of us and how happy he is that we are all enjoying ourselves. Beer and Spirits are passed around and we all hoist a glass and a cheer! And later that night when the lag beast has left and I’m down in the Orc Valley below Yew plying my trade and making some gold towards my first house I can’t help but smile, for I have met my King. Big Bad Wolf of WGW (Warriors and Guardians of the Woods) (Later to be the Bard Poo) July 11, 1999

A Memorable First – Addax’s First Trip to a Dungeon Addax had long been a lumberjack making his way by crafting bows and furniture for profit. After a while, he began to feel lonely in the forest and decided to join a guild for comradeship. Addax joined the Guardians of Truth (GoT) in early 1999. One day early in his membership, Addax was sitting alone in the guild house admiring his new uniform and plate armor. Suddenly, his fellow guild member Rodimus burst in the room asking for help. Vile leprechauns had been popping up all over Britannia and attacking people. Rodimus spotted large numbers of them in Shame dungeon, and he needed assistance to slay them. Addax had never been in any dungeons before. They had always sounded too dangerous for a humble woodsman like him, but he was an armored soldier in a strong guild now. Surely he could brave the danger. He picked up his ax and followed Rodimus through a gate to the depths of Shame Dungeon. After adjusting to the darkness, Addax found himself in front of a tower surrounded by water. The front door opened and out came a man dressed in a fancy white shirt, short green pants, a green cloak and a feathered hat. It was a leprechaun! Addax immediately charged, waving his ax wildly. Battle ensued and Addax quickly emerged victorious. Just as Addax sighed in relief and began to heal his wounds, two more leprechauns advanced out the door. The tower was full of them! The battle was tough, but Addax and Rodimus quickly worked their way through the tower picking up mugs of green ale from fallen leprechauns. They also took what clothing they could find without bloodstains intending to play at being leprechauns themselves. Once they tired of killing, Rodimus went home to rest and Addax returned to the guild house to report to the guild leader. Several members of the guild gathered to listen to his tale. Once he was done, they ventured forth to Shame Dungeon to kill some leprechauns themselves. Addax, however, had seen enough blood for one day. He returned home to enjoy drinking some green ale.

There are several memorable UO moments that come to mind; weddings, festivals, battles, EM events, but for me there is one that says it all about UO. It is when our UO world came together in 2004/2005 to support the people that were struck by the natural disasters of the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. UO players from around the world wanted to help those in need by offering to donate their time, gold, items, thoughts and prayers. A vet player named Crazy Joe organized a way for players to show their support with a new concept to the virtual world. With the approval of the UO administration, he developed Gamers Charity. This virtual charitable organization would auction off donated UO items for real dollars that would then be donated to the Red Cross. More than half of the UO shards participated. The UO Players helped raise thousands of dollars with billions worth of virtual goods. When the fundraiser was done, the amount in real life dollars donated to the Red Cross/Salvation Army was more then $10,000.00. This united action lifted the spirit of human kindness to a level that had not been seen in the virtual world. The charitable movement hit national recognition and Crazy Joe was interviewed on MSNBC about Ultima Online and Gamers Charity. As a ‘UO Wedding Cleric’ I was honored when asked to hold memorial services on the different shards. I was also given the chance to help Sosaria Live Radio (now Whispering Rose Radio) run a 3 day music-thon to raise as much gold as possible. Players donated so much gold it was unbelievable. A bit of fun developed during this sad time which helped us to stay focused on the main goal. There was some shard to shard competition but the best was when a challenge came forth that if we reached a certain amount in donations Crazy Joe would shave his head bald! He actually looked pretty good with no hair … players began calling him Crazy Joe Kojak. The reason why this UO memory is most memorable to me is not just because I have forged many great friendships from sharing a united goal but also because since that time I realize that behind every paper doll there is a real person. Behind every pixel on screen there is a real person whose talent and creativeness is being shared. Behind each publish there are real people just like the players who make up our UO World. For me, UO is not just a game, it’s really a way of life ~ Real and Virtual life entwined.

Over the past 15 years UO has helped touch and shape all of our lives. Join us in wishing everybody another wonderful 15 years rich with more memories and great friends.